How is it I’ve been writing reviews for over seven years and I’ve never written about my absolute favorite handgun? I must be losing my touch! But with the Sig P226 I’m certainly not losing my aim. These days the older hammer fired Sigs may not hold up in popularity compared to the new stuff but I’d argue they’re still vastly superior to the latest options.
Fair warning, this review will be more from the heart than August’s super technical review of the P229 and may contain moments of unrestrained fangirling. I can’t exactly call this one a “first impressions” review given how many hours I’ve logged with these guns.
To start, here’s Sig’s own words: “3,000,000 rounds. Consider it basic training.” The P226 across its various forms has seen lots of use in various police agencies and armed forces since it first rolled out in 1984, notably including our own Navy as the Mk25. Back in the military pistol trials where the Beretta M92 had ultimately been selected it was the Sig P226 which had ultimately come out on top for reliability, only losing out because Beretta could deliver at an overall lower price point.
These guns are solidly built and run like hell. They’re crazy simple to work on, enough that a non-certified “Youtube Armorer” like myself feels perfectly comfortable up to my elbows in its various springs and pins. Their ergonomics are glove-fit perfect for me but I’ve yet to hear any complaints. They provide an accuracy and repeated shot capability which has led a non-competitive fool like myself to either win or land on the podium more than once, both as a 9mm and with a .40 caliber upper.
It’s not just me, either. Everyone who has taken my P226 Elite for a spin has loved it. Surely I must have put a lot of work into it then? Nope. It has a solid steel guide rod which is a $15 to $25 upgrade from various aftermarket companies, though these days Sig appears to be offering solid guide rods from the factory. Mine also had some factory Sig parts swapped out with ones I had polished up the visual areas of with some Flitz, a mountain of Q-Tips, and a Dremel. On occasion I’ll run a Bar-Sto barrel for the extra gleam but the factory Sig barrels shoot every bit as well and as service firearms they are happy to devour any diet of questionably sourced bullets. Otherwise, my 226 runs stock parts across the board.
A logical evolution of the Sig pistols, the P220 had in its earlier days been a single stack 9mm but the desire for double stack capacity led to the P226. Earlier models didn’t have the same parts compatibility of the newest made guns with the P220, P226, P229/M11-A1, and a few others all using several shared internals. Nowadays you’d be hard pressed to find a P226 without a frame mounted accessory rail unless you opted for the 40th year anniversary model Sig brought out in 2024 which is a not exact homage to the original design.
The earlier German made Sigs, just like the 220 and 228, had a folded sheet steel slide and can still be found on the used market with a little digging. Many purists will argue these are the best of the breed but being honest, I disagree. Instead I see those as having helped pave the way for the even better versions we have today. Consider, would you rather have folded steel for a slide with milled steel inserts or would you rather have a slide which was milled out of a single block of stainless steel, then given a far better factory trigger pull? To me it’s no question, but I’d never scoff at the German made Sigs.
As is tradition with Sig there have been some minor updates rolled out along the way which tend to go beneath the radar. Same as with the P229 Elite, the latest generation of P226 Elite has seen a recontouring of the beavertail’s profile to make its curves more subtle, a solid steel guide rod, and a switch to Sig’s new reversible style of magazine release. There’s also the newer curved trigger profile.
Out of the box a P226 will come with 15 round factory mags, however my advice is to look for some flush fit 18 rounders from MecGar, a very well known top tier magazine manufacturer which provides OEM mags for many top brands, including Sig. It really is the same only better, adding those three extra rounds and using a more rounded polymer baseplate instead of a stamped sheet steel one. They’re also less expensive! If you want to push it to 20 rounds Mec-Gar’s got you covered there too with pre-installed +2 baseplates, or 10 round mags for ban states or for those who like to keep things a little more tidy for IDPA practice. The gloss nickel ten round MecGars are buttery smooth and easy to find after running a course, fantastic options for your mid-match reloads.
Ducking out from behind my rampant fangirlism here, there are a few small issues I have with the P226 (and the P220 and P229 as they’re so alike.) The biggest problem is how difficult it is to find some parts. This new trigger profile has nicely rounded sides and looks great from the outside but now it suffers from a greatly reduced surface area which encourages the index finger to curl inward more than I would like. Trying to find the previous style is becoming more difficult, and good luck trying to find a full set of factory nickel components anymore.
Then there’s the matter of sights. These days everything is getting some manner of tritium Sig X-Ray or night sight treatment. Back when I had gotten my SP2009 it had something called “Von Stavenhagen” sights with a plain white dot up front and a simple white square in back. This style of rear sight hasn’t been available for quite some time and is sorely missed, it seems the industry as a whole has abandoned this clean and quick sight picture. If you look around you might still find some called “straight eight” sights but last I checked these were also tritium which makes the dots pop less under the light. Somehow the older Sig dot over rectangle sight picture works better for me than the straight eight’s dot over dot profile.
The other complaint? The slide catch has a sharp corner. Releasing the slide with your thumb introduces you to the one and only sharp corner anywhere within the operating space. A few seconds on a grinding wheel and a pass or two of cold blue fixes this right up, by the way. A highly recommended and very trivial to do mod, ten minutes will forever improve the way your Sig feels if you’re in the habit of dropping the slide via the release.
These hammer fired Sigs are rapidly shifting into enthusiast and collector territory, and I get it. Why carry a physically larger gun when you can do better? While they are harder to find in stores (or in stock) there are still a couple variants of the P226 available, though I’ve heard a Sig rep once commented that for every one of these older hammer fired pistols they make they could produce and sell ten of the polymer framed striker fired models such as the P320 and P365. Compared to the 20+ variants of both the P320 and P365 the P226 only has nine variants listed on Sig’s site and I cannot guarantee all of them are still in production. Of these are the Mk25 Navy variant, the Legion of course, a ZEV modified one, and a few versions of the match-oriented single action XFive if you want to go the factory custom route.
These days the P226 (plus the P220 and P229) are unfortunately dinosaurs in the gun world. One need not look far at all to find a newer made and more feature rich offering which is smaller, lighter, more affordable, and capable of holding more rounds. In exchange you give up the longevity tests. By trying to do more with less and at a lower price you could potentially end up with less durable components. By trying to copy everyone else and chase the same trends you’re left with something lacking in soul.
It’s become rare for me to have any genuine interest in a new gun anymore. The Walther Q4 SF and the still in production X5.7 from Palmetto State Armory are two on a very short list. But show me an all stainless hammer fired Sig? I’ll squeal with delight and start looking for a price tag.
At some point a lot of gun owners will find their comfort zone. Some might have a collection of 1911 style handguns. Some might own three, seven, twelve, thirty variations of Glocks. For me, without a doubt my comfort zone is the hammer fired Sig pistols. Much like those 1911s or Glocks, if you’re comfortable with one then you’ll probably be comfortable with the others. The 226 is no extension, providing that “extension of the body” feeling which extends to the 220 and 229 yet wound up starting with the polymer framed 2009 back in the day. They all feel and handle wonderfully alike. To me, these pistols ARE Sig. Every other gun is just “something else they offer.” Sig IS the 220, the 226, and the 229, and I can only hope they never disappear.
Well, that and I can hope to someday own one of the all stainless steel Elites or one of the super rare factory compensated Sport models.
